Best Buy is threatening to sue a Catholic priest over his Beetle that reads "God Squad". Best Buy claims that violates its Geek Squad trademark. (Source: Flickr)

Best Buy accuses Catholic Priest of violating its trademark and Geek Squad look

Father
Luke Strand of the Holy Family
Parish in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, has a pretty interesting
ride. He drives around town in a black Volkswagen Beetle with a
logo featuring the phrase "God Squad" emblazoned on it.
That logo and the vehicle itself bear a striking similarity to the
mobile service vehicles of Best
Buy's service team, the Geek Squad.

Apparently, Best Buy
isn't pleased with its look being appropriated by this man of the
cloth. Lawyers for the electronics retailer sent Father
Strand a
cease-and-desist letter telling him to ditch the logo or
face consequences.

Father Strand mentioned the
letter at his Sunday Mass.

Speaking to the Fond
du Lac Reporter,
Father Strand defended the logo. He says he uses the logo as a
creative way to spur discussions and bring his faith to the
community.

Best Buy told reporters for the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel that
while it appreciates Father Strand's sentiments, it cannot stand by
and watch its trademarks be violated.

The legal dispute
revives a long ongoing question of just how much ownership to an icon
a company can claim. Apple, Inc., for example, has been
particularly zealous in legally assailing those who supposedly
violated its trademark. From New
York City to music
festivals, anyone who used the logo of an Apple -- or
particularly a logo of an Apple with a bite out of it -- was hit with
lawsuits or cease-and-desist letters.

Some
argue that companies are taking trademark enforcement to far;
corporate lawyers would obviously disagree.

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IIRC from my trademarks/copyrights/patents class, you're right. The real question is do they have a valid case? I would imagine this would qualify as Fair Use.

The purpose of the trademark is to ensure that the company can maintain its reputation with consumers. A restaurant can't call itself McDonald's if it is not a registered franchise. This would damage McDonald's and also the consumer (since they were expecting a different product).

The priest isn't competitor, the logo isn't likely to cause brand confusion, but the courts have a tendency to side with the owner of the trademark in even the most ridiculous cases, like with White vs Samsung.

I don't know about the rest of you but I remember hearing the term "God Squad" long before I ever heard of "Best Buy," let alone "Geek Squad."

The logo and the car are kind a pushing it but at the expense of bad publicity what were the bozos at BB smoking? Does BB really think this is a good idea... The only confusion I see here belongs to BB and the goof squad.

not when the alleged "violation" has A) no monetary gain and B) involves a service not related (meaning they aren't competing for the same business) to the one which utilizes the logo in question.

And besides that, a priest? You're going to sue a priest that was trying to stimulate interest in religion? GTFO. I'm not a creationist or even believe in Christianity (or any religion I've seen to this point for that matter), but I do respect all the major religions as man's attempt to maximize happiness in the short time we have in life. And for some people that can't figure it out for themselves, religion can make life better.

quote: And besides that, a priest? You're going to sue a priest that was trying to stimulate interest in religion? GTFO.

I would agree. More to the point, the priest is trying (effectively or not) to bring a more modern approach to the Christian message. Something that it suffers from more than its penchant for the taste of little boys.

Heaven forbid a priest try to make Christianity a little more accessible with a bit of humor and/or tongue-in-cheek advertising. But there are a fair number of intolerant (to things like religion) liberals there in Richfield, MN. I wouldn’t doubt it that he was served because he was a man of religion as much as anything else.

quote: Heaven forbid a priest try to make Christianity a little more accessible with a bit of humor and/or tongue-in-cheek advertising. But there are a fair number of intolerant (to things like religion) liberals there in Richfield, MN. I wouldn’t doubt it that he was served because he was a man of religion as much as anything else.

While I highly approve your use of irony in that statement ("Heaven forbid a priest"), I do disapprove of your blind bias toward anything liberal. Liberals did not serve him a lawsuit, a corporation did. In case you aren't aware, large scale corporate interests are usually on the conservative side. And we're talking about Best Buy, a company who, as recently as this year, donated money to conservative causes.

A person can have “conservative” ideals to things like business while having “liberal” ideals to things like religion. That is why I stated it as I did.

I work a couple blocks from the BB headquarters. I’m just making a comment based on my opinion of the people that live in the area. I’m not making a comment based on all liberals and all conservatives the world over.

Historically, the courts have said that the parts/uses of your trademark you find unobjectionable define fair use. It actually sounds like a good way to establish the integrity of a trademark, but unfortunately it encourages companies to sue everybody.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer